Ahem. Really? Comparing yourself to Michelangelo? 

Well, no. What I am trying to say is, that AI and vibe coding are bringing back together into one person the fragmented roles that make up contemporary software production. But then the question becomes: what do I do when the skills that have defined me become everyday?

We are a small software company specialising in the Django web framework. But web applications need frontends. So we are also React specialists.

And so our development team is split between backend and frontend development.

Was.

Because in the last couple of months we have been using AI full-on. Using vibe coding, speed of development has increased big time. Maybe ten times faster. Maybe more.

And what are we seeing is, where the roles were clear between backend and frontend, now they are becoming increasingly blurred.

Before, we would pair a frontender to a backender. Each their expertise, each their commits and pull requests.

We could still work that way. But then we would not optimally profit from the speed gains that vibe coding can bring. Because at some point, backend would be waiting for frontend, or frontend would be waiting on backend, just like before.

What we encourage instead, is that frontend also does backend, and backend also does frontend. Did I say encourage? Comes naturally when such a powerful tool is placed in the hands of our experienced developers.

Experience makes that they know the structure of programming. They know user interface just as much as they know databases, background workers, request and response. Knowing syntax is unimportant. Their AI knows syntax, they know structure.

Because I am old, I don’t use an IDE. Instead, I use a text editor, and next to it my AI powered terminal. The AI Agent writes my code. I review and press Apply.

Yesterday I had a breakthrough.

I was working on my project, backend and frontend. I would go to frontend, have My AI do something, go to backend in another tab, have My AI do something there. Faster and faster. Frontend and backend coding blending together.

And there it was, full flow. For a split-second, I was the master of code. Vibe coding.

But what do I do after the pigments are thoroughly ground, when the paints have been mixed to perfection, when, finally, I raise my brush to put paint to canvas? What does the vibe tell me to paint?

I have spent a substantial part of my life mastering the art of programming. With thousands upon thousands of others. We have left hundreds of millions of lines of code in millions of open source projects. All gratefully incorporated by AI. And AI can now fashion solutions for any problem.  

With AI and vibe coding, what I have mastered with so much effort is available at the press of a button. Just press Apply.

I should go back to school. I need to learn WHAT to build. Because HOW to build is mastered.